Library Reviews
Let’s Make Ramen
Banana Yoshimoto fans will be pleased. This is an early, hitherto untranslated work. Published back in 1988, the year of her acclaimed breakout “Kitchen”. As ever since, her penchant is for youth sibling and family dynamics. Some deftly underplayed reveals and crises help to kick the plot along.
“…a princess asleep in an old castle where time’s stopped, clinging to dreams of a lost dynasty…”
The basic setup is that Yayoi is a high school teen who begins to intuit that there is more to her happy family household than lets on. She seeks refuge with her eccentric aunt who herself has plenty of main character gravity. Unsurprisingly, much introspection and melodrama about relationships happen. Several surprises are in store and the pacing of these drip-fed reveals are quite well timed in the sense that there’s no overcooking. The first ones begin dropping about midway through. There is also a bit of genre awareness in that some common plot deviations are anticipated and quickly smothered.
Due to the publication lag, this has the anachrony of being a new release that was both written in and is set in the 1980s. Shared landline home telephones, television and video rental are effective callbacks for older readers. The familiarity will be less so for readers who have never say, physically held a cassette tape. When Yoshimoto burst onto the scene aged 22, she was lauded for her literary freshness. Nowadays, the mantle of literary wunderkind has been inherited by writers such as Rin Usami. The same translator, Asa Yoneda was also responsible for the English version of Usami’s Idol Burning (推し、燃ゆ) and the contrast of the works is stark. As for Yoshimoto Banana, she is still winning prizes such as the 2022 Tanizaki Prize for a short story anthology.
Rice Noodle Fish
“…there will forever be a line in our lives: Before Japan, After Japan….“
-The author and his new spouse reflect after a meal, both of them eyes glazed with that same new Japan sheen…
Rice, Noodle, Fish takes readers on a food sojourn through Japan unlike any other. The eating crawl visits street vendors, food courts (some that take up entire buildings), ramen stands, bars and drinking holes. This is a travel journal, not a restaurant and menu guide. It’s entirely about conveying the eating experience, the food culture and some of the diverse personalities encountered along the way. Early in the book is a visit to the tiny restaurant operated by a shokunin; one of Japan’s virtuoso chefs who have specialised in a given cuisine to the point of perfection. There is a meeting with the renowned, ramen-obsessed authority, Kamimura Toshiyuki. Partway through, there is a particularly magnificent photo of a grinning, bald-headed stall owner standing over his grill brandishing a mini flamethrower in one hand and giving a thumbs up with the other.
It’s no small demonstration of ability to write, not a column or even an article but an entire book centred on eating food but without becoming repetitive. The author, Matt Gouding, displays all the nous of a seasoned travel writer yet simultaneously pens with the smitten gusto of a first time Japan visitor. Language is casually colloquial, occasionally with some smack. The energy and persuasiveness could easily be imagined serving as the voice over narration to a travel documentary. Goulding, and this book, hail from the online publication, Roads & Kingdoms, which specialises in food, politics, travel and culture. The senior R&K stable, at the time, included the late Anthony Bourdain of Parts Unknown and Kitchen Confidential fame.
If anything, one of the annoyances of this book is the lack of an index. Maybe such a time honoured feature is passé and the hip non-fiction books leave them out now. Yes, ebooks can be searched but it still would have been kind to include an index for those bereft of ctrl+f. Admittedly however, it is the very writing in its rapid, palpable glory that compels one to keep reading to the detriment of pausing long enough to take notes in the first place.
(p59 image Toyo © Michael Magers Photography, p40 image otoro, Sander Jackson Siswojo)
(Previously reviewed 2017 August. Edited.)
Idol, Burning
This Akutagawa winning novella takes place in the overlap of a teenage girl’s hyper interactive online community and her all-eclipsing devotion to an idol band member. A vivid renditioning of a nascent subculture, with their near alien lingo and habits all facilitated by constant mobile connectivity.
Dramatic irony abounds in spite of the first person narrative. It’s evident to the reader that Akari struggles with some kind of learning disabilty. Her immediate family is almost single-parent and she doesn’t grasp the precariousness. Tragically, Akari’s only source of joy and motivation is subtlely horrifying.
Published in 2020, author Rin Usami was aged only 20, making her not much older than her main character. Usami comprehensively shows instead of tells. Akari’s daily activities, motivations and the interactions around her are related in an unvarnished, direct manner. Despite being fictional there is so much casual detail and so much dynamic variation that Akari and her world feel frighteningly authentic.
Printwise, the book employs numerous visual cues. The typeset and sporadic illustrations are characteristic of literature aimed at younger readers. Font changes make it easy to differentiate in-world online posts and reactions from the main narrative. There’s also a suprisingly copious amount of “extra features”, as it were, in the form of afterwords from the author, translator, a Q&A, a dedication essay and even small memos about the font and art.
It is interesting to contrast this novella and work from an established author who was a similar young prodigy, Banana Yoshimoto. Both authors write about youth but are separated by a gulf of time and very different styles. The Japanese language edition 推し、燃ゆ is also available for loan.
(Previously reviewed 2023 January. Edited.)